May Birthdays 
OK, here's what it looks like, before it has to go in the closet until Christmas.
Bought it from MF, paid $239.99 (such a deal!) MF's packaging left a little to be desired, as the interior box could move around in the exterior box. Unpacking it, you can see that you're getting a very bare-bones package. There's a guitar, and a baggie containing the tremolo arm and allen wrenches, and that's it. They don't even include a sheet describing the controls.
Fit and finish? Pretty good. The only flaws I can see are that felt under the back strap button seems to have been snagged on something, and there's a couple 'fuzzy' bits on the pickguard, as if it was cut from 2 different directions, and a little bit of chaff was left at the juncture. Nothing that a minute with a fine file or sharp knife wouldn't fix. Also, the finish itself looks like it would've used just a tad more polishing. Except for the felt, I'd have had a very hard time getting a photo of any of the flaws. There's no runs or drips anywhere. Neck pocket isn't completely airtight, but is adequate. The tremolo arm took more force than I expected to get into place. It sits a little high off the body for my tastes, but a simple bend would take care of that.
The maple is quite orange. The neck is shiny, but seems fast enough to me (with my limited skills). The Candy-Apple Red does look a bit orange, as some have noted. This is most likely because the base coat is a very fine metallic gold.
All that boils down to the fact that it's a nice looking specimen of the Jaguar genus. So I tuned it up and played a bit. All the controls did as you'd expect, though the various tone mechanisms were pretty subtle compared to, say, a Telecaster. The rhythm circuit controls actually gave a wider range of sound than the regular volume and tone.
As for the sound, it's very nice and full. It sure doesn't sound like an inexpensive guitar. And it is dead quiet compared to my other single coil instruments. It was physically easy to play, but quite unforgiving. Any touch of the fingers to a string made a noise.
Overall, I couldn't be happier with it. Inexpensive, looks and sound good. What more could you want?
